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24 March, 2013

Theatre: Piya Behroopiya – Even the bard must be in splits

Staging a comedy is a genuinely tall order and when it
happens to be written by William Shakespeare it becomes a hundred times as
difficult. The world has read the great Bard over the centuries and knows his
work inside out. Comedies have another issue ...its sustenance value, across
the length of a performance and in a comic play right across its enactment. A
minor slip up and it can degenerate into slapstick, a farce loose its fizz , fall flat or in its worse
case...a tragedy. This is the tight rope a writer and director has to walk with
their acting ensemble after they put together one.

Twelfth Night or What You Will is one of the great bard’s
most popular comedies and the writer Amitosh Nagpal who also plays Sebastian in
the play brings it to us in the form of folk theatre, the nautanki and in Hindi. He and
director Atul Kumar of “The Company Theatre” gives it a twist and bring forth
all the elements of a nautanki,the folksy singing and the narrative and fun in
such a crisp manner that one can’t help but marvel at the dexterity with which
this play has been handled.

Without much ado (it’s natural to become Shakespearan , when
writing about his plays)the actors plunge right into the plot on the kingdom of
Illiriya. Nagpal retains original names of the central characters thus giving
the audience a sense of continuity of not having disturbed the play. ‘Fans’ is
but a shorter version of the word ‘Fanatics’, and the bard certainly has his hard
core loyalists who under no circumstances can be alienated.

Viola (Geetanjali Kulkarni) & Sebastian are twins,
sister and brother, who are separated in a shipwreck each presuming the other
dead. Viola lands in Illiriya and masquerades as a gent Cesario in the services
of the Duke Orsino ( Sagar Deshmukh) an falls in love with the Duke. Orsino on
his part is in love with the Lady Olivia ( Manasi Multani) who is in a seven
year mourning for her brother who has died. She has her entourage around her, a
steward Malvolio ( Saurabh Nayyar) her uncle Sir Toby ( Gagan Rial, absolutely
superb ). Orsino sends Cesario with his message of love and instructs him not
to be back till it is delivered to Olivia. The Lady Olivia is charmed by
Cesario and falls in love with him and therein begins the momentum of the play
which just takes off in all directions. Each character brings in his own
mischief, his own desire and its own energy making this a rollicking journey.
There are other characters like the fool Feste given the name Phoolsingh played
by Neha Saraf who has the best lines but more so is her voice which soars over
her diminutive self and she has such a delicious sense of the stage, she just
grabs eyeballs with her song and dance and tomfoolery. The simple rejected
suitor Sir Andrew is played by the RJ Mantra who does a credible job.

Despite the change in language the grammar and the idiom of
a nautanki works for this play so well it’s amazing to have conceptualized and
executed this.The Soul of the original is intact. The play is a musical and the leads have passable singing voices
but maintain the tenor, tempo and mood in the musical renditions very well.
Manasi Multani plays an Olivia who has an accent of a Punjabi Aunty and her
comic timing is delicious so is her voice which reaches and maintains a high
note wonderfully. The stand out performance apart from Neha Saraf is that of
Gagan Rial playing Sir Toby as the perpetual drunk, his is an act of rare
balance and he doesn’t falter. He is ably supported by Trupti Khamkar who plays
the feisty maid Maria. Geetanjali Kulkarni as Viola has the most strenuous of
parts and she is glorious in the lead. She looks a tad elder but matches well
to Deshmukhs Orsino. Saurabh Nayyar's Malvolio has his hilarious moment when he is fooled into wearing tights and the occassional moment when he reverts to accented English. The shortest part in the play is Sebastian’s played by
Amitosh Nagpal who has an electric stage presence and in his short appearances
attracts the most laughter. The musical quartet led by Amod Bhatt – Harmonium,
Rahul Sharma-Percussion, Rachel D’souza and Trisha Kale are splendid, it helps
that they are good looking too as they are on the stage all the time in their
live musical background role.

The viewer is grabbed on three separate fronts in this
play...The stage which is divided into foreground where the main act is
rendered, the background where the characters retire to after their part in the
foreground. Here too it is not static but a support interlude happening which
adds to the performance and raises it to another level and the musicians who
are the dividing line. There are times when every single one is in the
foreground in a quawwali which is hilarious.

Hats off to The Theatre Company for pulling off the Twelfth
night in such a style that had the bard himself watched this version he too
would have been in splits.

About Me

I love the theatrical play of life as it unfolds act by act. The unending suspense, the adventure, the exhilaration,the anticipation and the being on your toes, to switch sides between being an actor to audience to actor again n again
Yes there are goals and they may even change during the course of the journey so why miss the fun of the moment till then?
Aeyy Zindagi...
Pehle se likkhaa..Kuch bhi nahin
Roz naya kuch...likkhti ho tum..
Jo bhi likkhaa hai..Dil se jiyaa hai..
Yeh Lamhaa..Filhaal ..Jee lene de..
I am greedy for life and its experience and believe in living up the moment. Did not find better words than Gulzars that could capture the essence of my philosophy...
Enjoy the company of smart people with a definite sense of humour.